Subscriber News: March 2023
Recent Honors
Congratulations to Carrie Grinstead. Her story "Ghost Story" won the 54th New Millennium Writings Award for Fiction. The 56th Awards, with prizes of $1,000 for poetry, fiction, essays, and flash fiction, are currently open through June 30.
Congratulations to Joan Leotta. Her poetry chapbook Feathers on Stone was published in November by Main Street Rag. Read sample poems on their website. In other news, her poem "Silver Sun on a November Morning" was the November runner-up in the Wilda Morris Poetry Challenge, a monthly themed contest. "Pulling Back the Drapes" was a runner-up in the 2022 Robert Frost Foundation Poetry Contest. Joan tells Winning Writers, "Your support and help has given me the confidence to enter these contests."
Congratulations to Geoffrey Heptonstall. His collection of nature poetry, The Wicken Bird, was published in November by Cyberwit. He kindly shares the title poem here.
Congratulations to Mary Salisbury. Her first book of short stories, Side Effects of Wanting, was published by Main Street Rag in October 2022. Listen to her podcast interview about the book with G.P. Gottlieb at New Books Network. Gottlieb says of this book, "Mary Salisbury spent nearly twenty years gathering together the pieces of humanity she saw reflected in the lives around her and distilled them into a poetically written, beautifully curated short story collection. In this debut, small-town stories speak of love and belonging, longing and regret. The people who populate these tales yearn for companionship and comfort but face the trauma of fractured relationships and the ache of not quite becoming the person they hoped to be."
Congratulations to Gary Beck. His fiction collection Judgements and Other Stories was released in December by Cyberwit.
Congratulations to Judy Juanita. Her poetry collection Gawdzilla was recently published by EquiDistance Press. This book examines race, marriage, family, abortion, and social changes since 1954, when the horror movie "Godzilla" was released, and the Supreme Court handed down its historic decision on school integration, Brown v. Board of Education. Kirkus Reviews says of this collection, "Juanita writes gloriously unrestrained poetry that always packs a punch...Readers will find this to be incisive writing that aims to be a powerful tool for positive change."
Congratulations to Annie Dawid. This November, Inkspot Publishing will release her book Paradise Undone: A Novel of Jonestown in the UK and Europe. In other news, her story "Comedy of Errors at 9,100 Feet" was published by Fairlight Shorts, an online literary journal in the UK.
Congratulations to Ellaraine Lockie. Her poem "Telling It Slant" won the Musepaper Poem Prize #72 from New Millennium Writings. This monthly contest for poetry and short prose, which sometimes has a specific theme, offers publication on their website and newsletter.
Recent Publications
Winning Writers Editor Jendi Reiter's essay "Don't Turn Around", about the song "Der Kommissar" by After the Fire, was featured in March Fadness, an annual pop-song playoff from the editors of the literary journal DIAGRAM. Vote for Jendi's song to win! "Der Kommissar" goes up against "She Blinded Me with Science" on March 16; voting begins 11 AM Eastern time and lasts 24 hours. In other news, Jendi and their NSFW teacup were featured on the Instagram account Mugshot Writers 2, curated by Stephanie Austin.
Kyle McDonald's epic poem The Blessed, a finalist in our 2022 North Street Book Prize, can now be experienced on YouTube as a fully scored and sound-designed recording with voice actors. Visit his website for more of his writing and acting projects.
MB Caschetta was interviewed about her memoir-in-essays A Cheerleader's Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (Engine Books, 2022) by Risa Denenberg at Lambda Literary in December.
Gail Thomas's poetry collection Trail of Roots (Seven Kitchens Press, 2022) was favorably reviewed in January by Mary Warren Foulk at The Poetry Café. Foulk says, "I return to her poems often for inspiration and guidance— for their stunning craft and for their model of humanity, radical honesty, and brave instructions on how to live, how to be a poet in the world, and how to navigate and face the roots of our ever becoming, no matter how challenging or wondrous."
Amy Greenberg's essay "How the Pandemic Helped Me Build a Stronger Self" was published on the blog of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the nation's largest grassroots mental health organization.
Corey Schulman's mystery novel The Writer's Story is available from Best Seller Publications. Fantasy and reality overlap when a novelist is accused of murder.
R.T. Castleberry's poem "Items from the Wreckage" was published in February in the online journal As It Ought To Be.
The Poet Spiel's story "Gram's Highest Calling" was published in A Story in 100 Words.
Published: March 11, 2023
